04 March 2014

RWANDA : KBC coach eager to end Espoir’s dominance

KBC are the only local team to beat Espoir once in two seasons, and Karime (in blue jacket) believes his team can even take the league title this season. File

Saturday
KBC 96-48 NUR
UGB 65-60 IPRCSunday
KBC 104-48 UR-CE
APR 36-44 Espoir
UGB 54- 46 UR-CE
Gisenyi 62-41 CSK
Kigali basketball club (KBC) over the weekend demonstrated their credentials as league title favourites after registering two wins against UR-College of Arts and Social Sciences and UR-College of Education respectively.
Cyrille Karima’s team beat UR- College of Arts and Social Sciences96-48 on Saturday before turning the table over UR-College of Education 104-48 on Sunday at Kimisagara youth sports centre court.
KBC’s Ally Kubwimana scored a game high 27 points on Sunday and he was ably supported by Pacifique Habyarimana and Sankara Uwimana, who contributed 25 and 24 points respectively.
It was the third consecutive win of the new season for KCB, who beat United Generation Basketball club (UGB) 68-52 in the first game on the opening weekend.
“We are happy to start the new campaign with three consecutive big wins. We want to be the best team in the league despite using only home-grown players,” said Karima, who also doubles as the national junior team head coach.
He added, “KBC”s target is to win the league title. It’s going to be a long and difficult race between now and end of the season but we are ready to wrestle the title away from Espoir.”
KBC are the only local team that has beaten reigning league and playoffs champions Espoir in the last two seasons. They won 61-59 in Game Three of last year’s play-offs finals in November.
Meanwhile, Espoir beat archrivals APR 44-36 in a low-scoring game played at Kimisagara on Sunday with forward Oliveir Shyaka scoring the game high 18 points, while Bienvenue Ngandu and Lionnel Hakizimana added 12 and 8 points respectively for Jean Bahufite’s team.